The majority of these performances
will be very familiar to Heifetz collectors and so will
the transfers. Discs one and two were remastered in 2006
whilst the bulk of the remaining pieces date to work carried
out in 1992-93. The selection certainly meets with my approval
ranging across the repertoire as it does and I particularly
commend the selection of the smaller pieces which occupies
discs five and six and the 1935 Bach recordings enshrined
in disc four. The sole item from the 1920s is also here;
the Menuet I and II from the Partita in E which was recorded
on an early electric in 1925 in Camden, New Jersey.

Heifetz had recorded the Sibelius
with Stokowski at the end of 1934 but it remained unissued
at the time and didn’t materialise until it was issued
in the multi-volume set devoted to the ‘Philadelphia
Orchestra Centennial Collection - Historic
Broadcasts and Recordings 1917-1998.’ His first commercially
issued recording was with Beecham and this justly famous
traversal kicks off this set. I’d just note that its ethos
is vividly at a remove from the performances of Anja Ignatius
and Georg Kulenkampff to cite two near contemporaneous
performances. The subtly sustained expressivity exemplified
by Heifetz can be heard at full tilt here. For the Tchaikovsky
and Glazunov Concertos he was partnered by Barbirolli,
who had earlier recorded the Tchaikovsky with a very different
Russian player, Mischa Elman. This represents probably
Heifetz’s best playing in the Tchaikovsky – at thirty-six
he was at his peak. The Glazunov is virile, taut, expressive,
full of shading, very different from Milstein’s more aristocratic
approach. On this evidence it’s a pity Barbirolli didn’t
explore the Glazunov symphonies.

Disc two is simply a reprise
of EMI 3532142. Heifetz’s Mozart is an acquired taste
and for me it lacks the repose and simplicity of the best
performers – say Szigeti, Szeryng, Grumiaux and Goldberg,
to name a stellar quartet. His K218 with Beecham lacks
what made the same conductor’s pre-war recording of the
same work with Szigeti so special – an unforced eloquence
devoid of extraneous gesture. K219 with Barbirolli is better,
and indeed preferable to the later remake with Sargent
but it’s sill over-burdened with masculine qualities. Some
people swear by the Beecham-led Mendelssohn of 1949 but
I find it aloof and over-nuanced. EMI’s newish noise reduction
system has been employed for this volume and the first
which I find aurally constricting.

Disc three is a virtuoso showcase.
You won’t find me dissenting about Wieniawski No.2 and
Vieuxtemps 4 – both with Beecham’s LPO but under Barbirolli,
and made within a few days of each other in March 1935.
The incomparable virtuosity and vibrancy of phrasing is
perfectly suited to these two, as indeed it is the post
war Sargent-led performance of Vieuxtemps 5, the concerto
with the one-minute finale. We also have a Saint-Saëns
brace – the usual suspects. If you need to focus on something
in particular in this disc let it be the Adagio religioso of
Vieuxtemps’s D minor – God-like phrasing.

Heifetz’s LP cycle of the complete
Sonatas and Partitas of Bach is relatively well known but
the individual performances he left in 1935 much less so.
These are in truth inconsistent and not always convincing
but they are nevertheless powerful, unequivocal statements.
The main demerit is the over-tensile approach – the Siciliano of
the G minor sonata for example is strongly over-vibrated
and would probably have been seen so when the recordings
were issued; Szigeti’s Bach recordings of the time are
more circumspect in this regard. There’s no doubting the
massive cumulative sweep of his Chaconne, though its linearity
does come at some cost – it’s very fast.

The fifth disc should contain
items rare to many. With either Franz Rupp or Arpád Sándor
as accompanists Heifetz runs through a miscellaneous selection.
He plays Clérambault’s Largo with quivering intensity,
Bazzini with expected nonchalance, the Strauss arrangement
with luxuriant phrasing and Glazunov’s Méditation with
truly beautiful cantilena. He lavishes elastic rubati on
the B section of Elgar’s La Capricieuse, gives us his own
celebrated arrangement of Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s Alt-Wien
and does the same with his even better known Dinicu.

The final disc opens with a
not too well known recording of Vivaldi’s Op.2 No.2 sonata
with Sándor, with a full complement of Heiftez slides and
expressive finger position changes to keep things alive.
The Moiseiwitsch Kreutzer sonata is here, a recording
with a chequered history; APR has an earlier, unissued
1949 traversal by the two men (see review)
on its books in which the balance between the two instruments
was far more natural than this skewed-to-the-fiddle 1951
recording – which is maybe why Heifetz vetoed that earlier
attempt. Despite the superior sonics of the released set
I prefer the earlier performance. The Franck saw Heifetz
paired with another heavyweight colleague, Rubinstein,
for a titanic and tensile, driving performance, exuding
very little Gallic smoke, but including a swankily motoric
second movement. My preferences lie with Dubois-Maas and
Francescatti-Casadesus but if you accept the virtuosic
premise you will find the duo rampantly exciting.

This then is a well-chosen selection
of vintage Heifetz material. Some of the transfers have
been too over-processed for my liking but in the main they
are very acceptable older restorations that stand up well.
Julian Haylock’s notes are a bonus.

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